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But how to make sure it didn't happen again was something completely different, Kyrie thought, as they got back into the diner, and Tom got the report from Anthony on what was prepared and what not. He tried to send Anthony home because it was best if Anthony went back and slept and came back in the morning, to relieve them when they would definitely need to rest, supposing there would be any rest that day.

They had barely got into the swing of their shift when Tom's phone rang, and he pulled it from his pocket. "It's Rafiel again," he said. And then, asking a puzzled Anthony to cover for them another five minutes, he pulled Kyrie with him into the storage area and put Rafiel on speaker.

"Hi," Rafiel said, between munching that indicated he was doing justice to the doughnuts he'd bought. "Look, I just came out to the car, with the excuse that I needed a doughnut."

"News on the body?" Kyrie asked.

"Well . . . yeah, kind of. But . . . the thing is . . ." He cleared his throat. "I got a phone call, from our medical examiner who was examining the . . . er . . . prophylactics they found in the planters."

Kyrie rolled her eyes. "You can say condoms, Rafiel. I know the word." An impish grin. "I've heard it a time or two."

A sound very much like a raspberry from the other end of the phone. "The medical examiner called it prophylactics. Of course, he also called the stuff inside genetic material, which he says exactly matches that of the first two vics."

"What, both of them?" Tom asked, sounding absolutely shocked.

"Well . . . no, one each. And no, there is no indication . . . I mean . . . the condoms were definitely used for . . . er . . . heterosexual sex. I mean . . . there were vaginal . . . secretions . . ." He paused in what seemed to Tom like an excess of embarrassment, like he had suddenly choked on it and couldn't go on. Tom grinned and waited, and eventually, after a noisy throat clearing, Rafiel came back on. "So it would seem that the male employees are not in fact a problem . . . though I can tell you, one of them, who apparently lives nearby and who dropped by to see if we needed him to show us or tell us anything, is definitely a shifter. His name is John Wagner. College student. Nice guy. Body builder. Works here part-time. I don't know what his shifted form is, but he . . . well . . . I'm fairly sure he doesn't have vaginal secretions."

"Unless his shifted form is as a woman," Tom said, wryly.

"Uh . . . I don't think so. You know, the other thing, the other part of the exam . . . of the . . ."

"Condoms," Kyrie said.

"Yeah. The other part of it is that it showed . . . well . . . The medical examiner thought this was from salve or cream, possibly a traditional medicinal one and that it should be easy to trace because of the exotic ingredient, but I'm not so sure. You see, there were . . . other cells on the sample. On the outside . . . They appear to be . . . Sharkskin cells. The examiner also thinks, possibly, because that was the shark tank, it might be someone who handles the sharks on a regular basis, although I don't even want to think what he imagines the handlers do with the sharks to get the cells in that particular region of their bodies."

Kyrie shrugged. "I bet you he thinks it's poor hygiene. And it might be."

"Oh, yes," Rafiel said. "It might be. On the other hand . . ."

"On the other hand, it could be something completely different," Kyrie said.

"Like someone who turns into a shark and back," Tom said. Because there was the very definite feel that the shift was never as complete as it seemed in either direction. More than once, Tom had shaken out his boots to find dragon scales inside them, even though he'd never worn them while a dragon and usually stepped well away from them before he shifted. And sometimes, when he washed his hair in the shower, one or two green and gold scales fell out.

"Yeah," Rafiel said. "That's what I'm very much afraid it is."

"In which case," Tom said, listening to Rafiel munch, "it's not so much a matter of maliciously pushing her—we'll assume her, since Old Joe said so—victims into the tank. It's more like your buying your doughnuts. A little snack to see her through the night."

The munching stopped. "Ew. Not like my doughnuts."

"Well, of course not," Tom hastened to say. "Unless you eat cannibal doughnuts." And then seized with sudden inspiration, "You know, Kyrie, we could do those next year for Halloween. Fill them with raspberry, or something, and put names on them . . . you know, like Joe or Mike, and call them cannibal doughnuts."

"Sure, we could," Kyrie said. "If our objective were to totally gross out and drive away our clientele. Besides, we can't do doughnuts properly. Not without a dedicated fryer."

"Maybe there will be enough money by the fall to buy another fryer," Tom said.

"Uh," Rafiel interrupted, "before you guys start arguing domestic arrangements, the other thing is, that I tried to find Old Joe, because, you know, since he was right about the last corpse—by the way, the name was Joseph Buckley; he was a software salesman—I thought he might be able to give me details and pinpoint who the woman might be he was talking about. But I can't find him anywhere."

Tom sighed. "He's very, very good at hiding. I think he's been doing it for centuries. If he's right about having been alive since before horses . . ."

"Yeah. Probably. Anyway . . . I can't figure out where he's gone, so if you hear something let me know."

And then he hung up, leaving them in the storage room, staring at each other.

"I wonder if John Wagner is a member of the Rodent Liberation Front," Tom said, biting the corner of his lip, in the way he did when he was thinking of something unpleasant. "I think he's one of our regulars. I remember the description, and also processing credit card bills for John Wagner."

Kyrie nodded. "Yeah, he is. He usually comes in for breakfast on Wednesday. And he's very fond of sweet bread, you know, Hawaiian bread. He always asks for a toast of that. Something about growing up in Hawaii."

"Interesting."

"Why interesting?" Kyrie asked.

"Because . . . if I remember correctly—and mind you, this is me remembering some cheap book or other that I read at some shelter for runaway teens, years ago—but if I remember correctly, Hawaii is the only place that has legends of shark shifters." He frowned. "Well, the Japanese might too. But Japanese shifter legends are very difficult to understand. I mean . . . they're not Western in structure. So even though I was very interested in all stories about shapeshifters, I don't think I remember any Japanese ones."

Kyrie nodded, but she felt her forehead wrinkle. "You know . . ." she said. "I . . . I don't know. I can't understand why I never smelled John Wagner. I mean, I serve him every week. You'd think I'd have sniffed him out."

Tom frowned. "Rafiel and I were talking about that, because of sniffing out Khaki Guy, you know. Both of us tried and neither of us could get a scent, but really . . . it's so cold, and then, the thing is . . . I've been homeless, but I washed. At least once a day. He clearly doesn't. There were smells, you know, of food and stuff, which I'm sure he's dropped on his clothes. And there was a smell of tobacco, too, and it was really hard to make out his smell amid all those, much less in the cold. So we don't know if he's a shifter, or just paranoid about shelters and closed-in situations. Which lots of people are, for reasons that have nothing to do with being shifters."

"Obviously," Kyrie said. "But John Wagner washes. I'm sure of it. He usually looks squeaky clean."

"Yes, but then when does he come in? Early early morning, right, before six a.m.? Before we quit. And I bet you he works days. So at six a.m. or before that, he's freshly washed, and probably has deodorant and aftershave on. Mix that with the smells of the diner—from fries to eggs and bacon—and you'd need to be looking for the smell of shifter to identify him. Or any other shifter."

"Yeah," Kyrie said. She nodded. "Well, I'm going to be looking for it, from now on. In just about everyone. Rodent Liberation Front and Ancient Ones and triads!" she said in a tone of great exasperation.

"Oh, my," Tom said, and smiled apologetically.

 

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Framed